


Nancy

by eeyore1222



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 12:30:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6195193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eeyore1222/pseuds/eeyore1222
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the twelfth year that she’s lived as Nancy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nancy

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic came from a post by @knowngayroot on Tumblr (http://knowngayroot.tumblr.com/post/140251042941/in-bishop-in-the-90s-there-were-two-escapes-for). I wrote the story in my first language (Chinese) a few days ago and have finally found the time to translate it into English. (I know nothing about police titles in the US so pls kindly ignore possible mistakes in that regard.)

Nancy

~~~

She’s been Nancy for twelve years now.

Nobody would believe, herself included, even after using it for more than ten years, that she picked this name for herself.

“Are you sure that you’re going to go by that name?” Twelve years ago, when Fusco first read her file, he looked at her with small and doubtful eyes, and expressed his concern.

“I’m sure.”

“This must be some joke that Cocoa Puffs pulled on you, isn’t it? You can let me know, Shaw. There’s nothing to be coy about. Believe me, this name will give you tons of headache in NYPD.”

“I’m Nancy, Fusco, nice to meet you too. You’d better get used to the fact that from this day on, you have a partner with a stupid name.”

That was February 29th, twelve years ago. The Leap Day, a date hard to forget.

~

As it turned out, living with a foolishly sweet white girl’s name while working for the NYPD isn’t that troublesome after all.

Her talents are recognized by her colleagues. She’s a good cop, could’ve been the best if it wasn’t for all the holding back thing she had to endure from Fusco. After spending 6 months on the force, people began talking to her about getting a new partner. Hints turned into suggestions and then transfer orders from her superiors. She turned them all down and stuck with Lionel.

There was no more exclusive access to a confidential information channel that was never wrong, so she turned back to the old school recon she’d always loved so much. She was so good at this. She’d like to think that it took her one year to expunge every bit of teasing and contempt from the sound of her name on everyone’s lips when they spoke with her. Fusco told her that it was ten months.

In the seventh year of their partnership, Fusco got shot in the knee by a stray bullet from some gang ruffian on the street. She came to the hospital to visit and stood at the end of his bed, staring for a long time at the stout man who met her gaze from his compromised position with small and doubtful eyes.

Finally, he raised his fat palm to rub at the corner of his eyes and broke the silence. “Ironic, isn't it?”

“Indeed.”

“You can have a new partner now.”

“That’s not what I want.”

“Me neither, Nancy. Me neither. To be your partner is to function as a bullet shield, and you get a double-sized one in Lionel Fusco.”

She didn’t get to meet her new partner. The day after Detective Fusco’s retirement, she was promoted to be the district captain and began working from behind a nice desk in a nice office.

~

Vigorous and resolute in her work, she never wasted a second worrying about her decision offending anyone or building good interpersonal relationships. It was understandable that she was extraordinarily efficient, which means during office hours it was not rare that she would find herself with some free time to spend in whatever way she wanted.

She paid a lot of visits to the forensics department. The frequency of her visits gave some wrong ideas to the new forensic examiner, a young girl with bright blue eyes and soft golden curls.

“After I finish this report, would you like to join me for some coffee? … Cap … I mean, Nancy?” 

She caught sight of the girl’s black-frame glasses that took up almost half her face (it was an endearing look actually) and thought to herself that she’d finally come to understand why people called it a stereotype.

Funny. These were the kinds of glasses that Root would wear, on those occasions they got to spend some private time together. Root would move around leisurely in her apartment day through night, wearing nothing but those stupid glasses and her drowsy grin. But she’d never made the connection before.

Because that was Root. The woman would never be captured by a stereotype whatsoever.

She smiled tightly and turned the girl down as gently as she could. A week later the young examiner received an offer from Scotland Yard to join a professional advancement program. She left New York bubbling with excitement.

She did not invest in interpersonal relationships. That doesn’t mean she had nobody to do her a small favor when she needed one.

~

Director of the Forensics Department was a kind, assiduous old man, focused on doing his own job and never minding the captain lingering in the morgue. He’d let her spend long hours there, opening drawer after drawer to take a careful look inside.

There was only this one time, when she seemed to have been trapped there long enough to raise his concern, that he came in to check on her. He found her sitting by the door, on the floor in an almost invisible quiver.

“You alright, Nancy?”

“That one, 411, I need to know her height.”

He walked over to his computer and pulled up the autopsy report, and came back with a number. “5 feet 7.”

She stood up on trembling legs. “Have you done a dental mould?”

“No. Seems unnecessary at this point.”

“I need one, now.”

~

Gradually they became friends, the old forensic examiner and the woman captain. If someone like Nancy could ever have a friend.

He kept a dental record on every Jane Doe with an approximate height of 5’7”, regardless of the necessity of the case itself.

She would accompany him to the cemetery once a year, to put a bouquet on the gravestone of his wife and daughter who passed away years ago in a car accident.

“Do you have loved ones, Nancy?” It was their fourth visit to the cemetery when he finally asked. 

It was early spring. The grass and mud in the cemetery were giving off a fresh and sweet smell in a sprinkling rain.

“No.”

“Who gave you the name ‘Nancy’? Your parents? Adoptive parents? Foster family? Some state welfare institution? You are the most unlikely ‘Nancy’ I’ve ever met.”

“My girlfriend said the name fit me well.”

The old man watched her with warm, gentle eyes. “5 feet 7, slim, with slightly uneven teeth?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened, that she is not here with you?”

She’s got used to her professional image now, with her hair pulled back into a tight neat bun, but that day she had carelessly bound her hair in a ponytail. Raindrops were dripping from some stray locks all over her eyebrows and cheeks, making it impossible for her to tell if there were also tears on her face.

“There are things she has to do.”

~

It was the only time that she ever heard Root talking about her childhood.

To tell the truth, she had been genuinely surprised by Root’s patience when she was taking care of a short-tempered and ungrateful patient.

“You are indeed full of fucking surprises, Root.” She was leaning on the headboard and hissed, too weak to stop Root from cleaning up her vomit for the seventh time in 24 hours. “I’d never thought you were even capable of things like this, princess.”

That night Root lay beside her and explained in a low voice. “When I was a little girl back in Texas, my mother was very sick, for a very long time.” She spoke slowly, almost as if she was talking to herself in a dream. “These are things I’m quite used to do.”

And then she went on to describe her life in Bishop in the 90s, how she had a crush on FBI agent Dana Scully, and loved reading series of detective novels starring a smart girl. Girl’s name was Nancy.

“You know, Sameen, Nancy was my hero. Without her, I would not have coped with my problems as well as I did.” She fell silent for a long while after that, before she sighed deeply and uttered the most ridiculous thing, even for Root. “You are just like Nancy, Sameen. I have to ask the Machine to prepare for you a fake identity. Nancy, Nancy the Detective.”

She used all the strength left in her limbs to produce a sneer from her nostrils. “Nancy? That’s one silly-ass white girl’s name.”

“Highly observant, brave, sharp-witted, kind-hearted and beautiful … You are every bit as Nancy for me, Sweetie.”

~

This is the twelfth year that she’s lived as Nancy. At the start of the year it looked quite likely that she would become the next captain in chief. 

She quit the NYPD.

In late February, when New York was suffering from a cold wave, Nancy the retired police officer arrived in Bishop, Texas. She failed to find a burial ground with the name “Groves” engraved on the tombstone. Owner of the town bar, a middle aged man with only one eye left, informed her that the Groves don’t have a graveyard in Bishop. Little Sam took the ashes of her mother with her when she left town and never came back. 

She paid a visit to Hanna Frey’s grave instead. And then she wanted to meet that infamous librarian. She came up to the Russel household but nobody answered the door. A neighbor told her that the old woman was staying at a home in Austin.

She drove up to Austin and found the care facility. Staffs there were sorry for her because she missed the old woman by just two days. They said that she died of complications of obesity. 

She asked if she could take a look in her room, if it had not been occupied by someone new. Southerners are generally much nicer people than New Yorkers, and all her requests were met with hospitality. After all, Nancy from NYPD was a name that even some Austin police officers could recognize.

She took over all of the old woman’s belongings in a small cardboard box. A scarf knitting half finished, a few letters, and several books.

No Flowers for Algernon among them.

She stayed at the Western style hostel of Bishop for three days. On the day of her departure, she finally made up her mind to take out those letters.

Familiar handwriting. Exactly the same words on every one of them. Short notification without a single shred of tone, telling the old woman there was a home in Austin that could meet her needs and she shouldn’t worry about the cost. The last letter was written in the winter two years ago and sent from somewhere in Russia.

She took the letters with her when she left Bishop.

~

She comes back to New York on February 29th. The Leap Day once every four years is her partnership anniversary with Lionel Fusco and they have this tradition of drinking together.

But she is in a bad mood. It is worse than she thinks she is capable of. She considers making up a white lie to avoid celebrating with Lionel. She can just tell her old partner that she is still wandering around in the West.

Lionel’s voice is tight when he picks up the phone.

“You come over here right now, Shaw. Right. Now.”

Something hits her right in the guts, making her light-headed and sick. She has not heard anyone use that name for twelve years.

She doesn’t remember how she manages to get to Lionel’s cabin in the woods in upper New York. It is a miracle that she didn’t drive the car into a ditch. Her hands are trembling and she can feel cramps in her calves, even after she has come inside and sat down for quite some time.

She is reminded that she too, is a woman in an age that needs calcium supplement.

But the other one sleeping on Lionel’s sofa does not seem to have changed at all.

5 feet. 7 inches. Slim figure. Brown short hair.

Short?

Short. And straight too.

She tries to raise her shivering hand to comb through said hair. Some silver flickers on her fingertips.

And then she sees those slightly uneven teeth, one by one, from incisors to molars, as they are revealed in that face-cracking, drowsy grin. 

Nothing, nothing in the world could teach the woman to smile in a demure manner.

Not Root. Not in front of Sameen Shaw.

 

-FIN-


End file.
